Clone Wars

Here’s the leaked trailer for the new Star Wars Clone Wars TV series, which will have a big screen debut in August. I’m still not a fan of the style of the artwork, and I think I’d prefer it to be about a new set of characters rather than Obi-Wan and Anikin. I’d rather see cool new Jedis and have Anikin just make occasional appearances as a hero, since we already know his story.

Clone Wars Shorts

Star Wars: Clone Wars, by director Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack), debuted Friday night. It’s a very strange concept: 20 5-minute short films that take place during the Clone Wars between episodes II and III. The bad news is that each short is only five minutes long. Worse news is that they air on Cartoon Network weeknights at 8 o’clock, so they’re easy to forget about and conflict with most prime-time shows. Fortunately, the good news is that the official website has QuickTime and Realmedia versions of each short. The even better news is that they also have versions with commentary. The visual style of Tartakovsky’s work fits in wonderfully with the tone of the stories (from what I can tell so far), and the high production values equate to pretty, fluid motion and nicely detailed backdrops. The shorts will air over the next two weeks, with ten more coming in a few more months.